“Let Us Mine in the Ground, Not in Court”: Hichilema Challenges Mining Investors

If you hold a mining licence in Zambia, the message from Lusaka is to use it.

At the third Zambia Mining and Investment Insaka, licence holders were urged to develop their mining tenements, avoid speculative licence holding and turn mineral wealth into jobs and better lives. "Let us mine in the ground, not in court," a write-up of the day's message says.

President Hakainde Hichilema told delegates the Insaka "is not a holiday" but a place to close deals. He said that when he took office, almost every critical mine was stuck in court, with many cases heard in London. He said he took many of those disputes out of the courts and that dialogue works better. In one case, he said, a mine and its energy supplier spent four or five years in court. "We don't want you to sue mines," he said, speaking to regulators. "We want you to bring mines into a room, talk to them and find each other."

He said the results can be seen. A mine that had been closed for 23 years is working again, he said, and another that was shut for 47 years is in production. He said the Konkola Deep Mining Project will add 300,000 tonnes within two years towards the 3 million tonne copper target.

Investors, for their part, were asked to bring the best available technology, pass on skills and expand local processing. The President said Zambia wants "not second-hand technology" and that communities should benefit through jobs and training. At Lumwana, he said, young women from the local community now drive 300-tonne dump trucks.

If red tape gets in the way, the message is to say so. Mr Hichilema asked investors to give Government a checklist of what blocks business, and told public servants that if a deal needs clearing, "we should do it tonight, so it is ready tomorrow."

He also called for a predictable operating environment across the region, "so we don't have this start-stop African mentality," as part of the Grow Zambia Agenda.